region.
The long-term aim of the project is to utilize the so-called Butterfly Effect to divert typhoons away from vulnerable populated areas—or perhaps prevent them from forming in the first place.
Maria said, “Define ‘Butterfly Effect.’” A second window opened up in front of the news report:
Butterfly Effect: This term was coined by meteorologist Edward Lorenz in the late 1970s, to dramatize the futility of trying to make long-term weather forecasts. Lorenz pointed out that meteorological systems were so sensitive to their initial conditions that a butterfly flapping its wings in Brazil could be enough to determine whether or not there was a tornado in Texas a month later. No computer model could ever include such minute details—so any attempt to forecast the weather more than a few days in advance was doomed to failure.
However, in the 1990s the term began to lose its original, pessimistic connotations. A number of researchers discovered that, although the effects of small, random influences made a chaotic system unpredictable, under certain conditions the same sensitivity could be deliberately exploited to steer the system in a chosen direction. The same kind of processes which magnified the flapping of butterflies’ wings into tornadoes could also magnify the effects of systematic intervention, allowing a degree of control out of all proportion to the energy expended.
The Butterfly Effect now commonly refers to the principle of controlling a chaotic system with minimum force, through a detailed knowledge of its dynamics. This technique has been applied in a number of fields, including chemical engineering, stock-market manipulation, fly-by-wire aeronautics, and the proposed ASEAN weather-control system, Operation Butterfly.
There was more, but Maria took the cue and switched back to the article.
Meteorologists envisage dotting the waters of the tropical western Pacific and the South China Sea with a grid of hundreds of thousands of “weather-control” rigs—solar-powered devices designed to alter the local temperature on demand by pumping water between different depths. Theoretical models suggest that a sufficient number of rigs, under elaborate computer control, could be used to influence large-scale weather patterns, “nudging” them toward the least harmful of a number of finely balanced possible outcomes.
Eight different rig prototypes have been tested in the open ocean, but before engineers select one design for mass production, an extensive feasibility study will be conducted. Over a three-year period, any potentially threatening typhoon will be analyzed by a computer model of the highest possible resolution, and the effects of various numbers and types of the as yet nonexistent rigs will be included in the model. If these simulations demonstrate that intervention could have yielded significant savings in life and property, ASEAN’s ministerial council will have to decide whether or not to spend the estimated sixty billion dollars required to make the system a reality. Other nations are observing the experiment with interest.
Maria leaned back from the screen, impressed.
It wasn’t clear how long Operation Butterfly would spend monitoring each typhoon—but she could forget about returning to the Autoverse for the day.
Reluctantly, she logged off the news system—fighting the temptation to sit and wait for the first reports of the typhoon in question, or the response of other supercomputer users to the great processing buy-out—and began reviewing her plans for a new intruder surveillance package.
2
(Remit not paucity)
NOVEMBER 2050
“What I’m asking for is two million ecus. What I’m offering you is immortality.”
Thomas Riemann’s office was compact but uncluttered, smartly furnished without being ostentatious. The single large window offered a sweeping view of Frankfurt—looking north across the river, as if from Sachsenhausen, toward the three jet-black towers of the Siemens/Deutsche Bank Center—which Thomas believed was as honest as any conceivable alternative. Half the offices in Frankfurt itself looked out over recorded tropical rainforests, stunning desert gorges, Antarctic ice shelves—or wholly synthetic landscapes: rural-idyllic, futuristic, interplanetary, or simply surreal. With the freedom to choose whatever he liked, he’d selected this familiar sight from his corporeal days; sentimental, perhaps, but at least it wasn’t ludicrously inappropriate.
Thomas turned away from the window, and regarded his visitor with good-natured skepticism. He replied in English; the office software could have translated for him—and would have chosen the very same words and syntax, having been cloned from his own language centers—but Thomas still preferred to use the version “residing inside” his own “skull.”
“Two million? What’s the scheme? Let me guess. Under your skillful management, my capital will grow at the highest possible rate consistent with the need for total security. The price of computation is sure to fall again, sooner or later; the fact that it’s risen for the last fifteen years only makes that more likely than ever. So: it may take a decade or two—or three, or four—but eventually, the income from my modest investment will be enough to keep me running on the latest hardware, indefinitely… while also providing you with a small commission, of course.” Thomas laughed, without malice. “You don’t seem to have researched your prospective client very thoroughly. You people usually have immaculate intelligence—but I’m afraid you’ve really missed the target with me. I’m in no danger of being shut down. The hardware we’re using, right now, isn’t leased from anyone; it’s wholly owned by a foundation I set up before my death. My estate is being managed to my complete satisfaction. I have no problems —financial, legal,
Paul Durham chose to display no sign of disappointment. He said, “I’m not talking about a perpetuity fund. I’m not selling any kind of financial service. Will you give me a chance to explain?”
Thomas nodded affably. “Go ahead. I’m listening.” Durham had flatly refused to state his business in advance, but Thomas had decided to see him anyway—anticipating a perverse satisfaction in confirming that the man’s mysterious coyness hid nothing out of the ordinary. Thomas almost always agreed to meet visitors from outside—even though experience had shown that most were simply begging for money, one way or another. He believed that anyone willing to slow down their brain by a factor of seventeen, solely for the privilege of talking to him face to face, deserved a hearing—and he wasn’t immune to the intrinsic flattery of the process, the unequal sacrifice of time.
There was more to it, though, than flattery.
When other Copies called on him in his office, or sat beside him at a boardroom table, everyone was “present” in exactly the same sense. However bizarre the algorithmic underpinnings of the encounter, it was a meeting of equals. No boundaries were crossed.
A visitor, though, who could lift and empty a coffee cup, who could sign a document and shake your hand— but who was, indisputably, lying motionless on a couch in another (higher?) metaphysical plane—came charged
